to the carolinas with the fam...

I bet you all thought I fell off the planet. :)

After our trip to DC, we drove down to North Carolina to meet up with Nathan's parents and sister.  His parents are missionaries in Albania, and we haven't seen them since Christmas.  They spent several weeks in the States for the birth of their second grandchild (more on that later).

What a fun trip!  It was great to spend some time together as a family away from Ohio; we were on a much more relaxed schedule than usual.  We stayed for 5 nights in a luxury cabin of a mountain resort (Scenic Wolf Resort if anyone's interested).  The drive up the mountain was a little intimidating, but the sunsets were gorgeous, and the cabin beautiful.  We spent some time hiking, at the pool, and lots of time playing games together.  We also made a few trips down to SC to visit the new little addition to our family and wound up staying down there for a few extra days.

Here's a picture of the cabins from above.

And here is our cabin, "Mountain Time."

As you can see, Silas quickly made himself at home.

We went on several hikes in the mountains.  Silas still loves his Bjorn!

Family pic.

Learning about caterpillars.

With Nathan's mom, aka Gjyshja.

There was no shortage of beauty around those parts.

Hanging out at the pool with Aunt Lisa.

These next shots are from our last few days in South Carolina.

They have this beautiful park right by the downtown area; it was fun to walk around even in the stifling heat.

Another family pic (this time with my cookies & cream blended iced coffee...YUM).

Loved this tree. 

Whew, that was a lot of pictures!  Hope you enjoyed!  I'll try to get back to my regular 2-3 times a week posting now that we're back in the swing of things. :)